


The Importance of an Apology

by anna_e



Series: Maria Stark Jr. One Shots [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Civil War Team Iron Man, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Stark!Reader, We're all proud of him, and he's doing a good job, bucky is trying to figure out who he is, lowkey anti steve rogers, mention of PTSD, mention of extreme injury, not team Cap friendly, pro bucky tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:20:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25139110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_e/pseuds/anna_e
Summary: Walking down the hallways of the Avengers Compound was not something that Maria often found herself doing. She made a personal effort to avoid going near the building if at all possible. And if she did ever go, she stuck close to Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, or Peter.Of course life didn’t really care about her personal biases and internalized fears, which is what led her to walking alone down the seemingly endless hallway towards a conference room she absolutely did not want to enter. Silently, she cursed her uncle and Carol for choosing to have the meeting here. She loved them both dearly, but being back here sucked.
Relationships: Bucky & Stark!Reader, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Original Female Character(s), Rhodey & Stark!Reader, Tony Stark & Daughter!Reader, Tony Stark & Original Female Character(s), implied future stark!reader/bucky
Series: Maria Stark Jr. One Shots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1286228
Comments: 5
Kudos: 66





	The Importance of an Apology

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has been sitting in my drive for quite some time now, and i've gotten bored of it just gathering dust, so i'm chucking it out into the world. enjoy.

Walking down the hallways of the Avengers Compound was not something that Maria often found herself doing. She made a personal effort to avoid going near the building if at all possible. And if she did ever go, she stuck close to Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, or Peter. 

Of course life didn’t really care about her personal biases and internalized fears, which is what led her to walking alone down the seemingly endless hallway towards a conference room she absolutely did not want to enter. Silently, she cursed her uncle and Carol for choosing to have the meeting here. She loved them both dearly, but being back here sucked. 

As she glanced at the walls and into some training rooms, she reminded herself to thank her father for buying back the Stark Tower and allowing her and certain members of the Avengers to relocate there. 

A door opening did not deter her on her mission to get in and out as fast as possible. Looking up and seeing who had come through said open door did make her steps falter slightly though. 

She paused, staring at the man that Steve had ruined the team for, the face that had been one of the last faces she’d seen before she fell forty feet and nearly broke her back.

“I-” he took a step back and moved into what Maria assumed was meant to be a non-menacing stance, which didn’t do much to help her heart and how fast it was beating. “What are you doing here?”

She internally cursed herself for convincing her father to remove Friday from the compound. The rouge avengers didn’t deserve the angelic AI. But said angelic AI would be a great help right now in this moment. Slowly, she crossed her arms, making sure to keep her fingers as close to her choker that housed the iron suits nanobots as possible. If a fight broke out, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to go into it with just a prototype suit this time.

“I’m here for a meeting. Not that it’s any of your business.” The meeting was to discuss the idea of The Stark Foundation being in charge of personally funding Spiderman, War Machine, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, The Vision, and a couple other selected few that worked under the direction of Rhodey on his division of the Avengers. Carol was an angel so she also received some funding, but her division of the Avengers could get fucked. A decision that Carol loudly and gladly agreed with. The rouge Avengers, or division B as they were now known, received their funding from the government. It was enough to keep them comfortable and alive, but not nearly as fancy as the luxury they’d once received from the Starks. 

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have asked.” He seemed to hesitate for another moment before looking up at her again, guilt clearly written across his face. “Are you alright? I mean, I saw the news reports from a few months ago so I know you’re not. But is there any permanent damage from?-” He cut himself off again, gesturing slowly and vaguely at her whole body. 

Maria very badly wanted to snap back at him, make sure her words were sharp and deadly, but she hesitated. He had asked, and he didn’t seem to be attempting to figure out her weaknesses, he just wanted to see if she was alright. 

“Other than some recurring pain in my back and the right side of my hip, as well as a heaping handful of PTSD, I’m fine.”

She wasn’t expecting Bucky to sound like he was getting a soft gasp punched out of him. She also wasn’t expecting his voice to sound so cracked and near tears when he spoke again. “I thought he’d killed you.”

“What?”

“Steve, I thought he had killed you when he pushed you. You’re just- fuck you’re so small and you barely had any armour or protection and I was positive you’d died down there.”

It was mostly bitterness and mild curiosity that led her to asking “Disappointed?” 

“God no. Jesus Mar- Ms.- _Dr._ Stark, when I saw the news report that you were alive I nearly fucking died. It killed me to see how hurt you were, to see the things we had done to you. I watched every news report until the witch broke the TV, and I got all my updates from Shuri after that.”

“Why? Why did you care?”

“Because I thought I’d killed you!” He took another step back when he saw her flinch, slowly raising his flesh hand and running it through his hair. “I thought you were dead and I couldn’t forgive myself for it. I didn’t even want to forgive myself for it. I don't think I have. I couldn’t stand- I still can’t stand being around those people. They all said it was for the better, Steve kept saying it wasn’t my fault over and over again but it was! All of this was my fault and you and your father almost died because of it.”

“You didn’t push me.”

He looked up and met her gaze, his jaw clenched and eyes glassy. “But I let him push you. And now you’re still hurt because of it. Jesus, you’re twenty-three, you aren’t supposed to be living with that kind of pain and that kind of PTSD.”

“The PTSD isn’t that bad. I mean, I’m standing here and having a conversation with you while my brain is screaming at me to abort mission.” She laughed quietly. “My therapist might even consider this progress. I’ll call it progress even if she doesn’t.” She looked back up again to see that Barnes was watching her hesitantly, as if expecting her to lash out at him. “Is there anything else you’d like to say? Because this is probably the last time you’re gonna get this opportunity.” When he didn’t answer, she nodded and began to walk towards the door to the conference room. “No? Alright cool, good talk.”

Before she got even five feet away, she heard him speak again. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault that you never got to meet your grandmother and I am so sorry for that.”

Maria stared the man down, her hand still poised and ready to fly to her choker to activate the nanobots at any given moment. “I don’t forgive you.”

She wasn’t sure what reaction she’d expected, but the understanding nod wasn’t it. “I’m not expecting one. Still, I’m sorry. You never have to forgive me. You’re not obligated to.”

“Why?” When he raised an eyebrow Maria elaborated. “Why don’t you expect forgiveness? Isn’t that the point of an apology, to get forgiveness?”

“From my understanding, the point of an apology is to apologize, not expect the wrong to be righted and for forgiveness to be given. I don’t know a lot these days, but I know that.”

“Wow. That’s a first.” She did feel a little awkward not giving him any sort of acceptance of the apology though. After all, he did go through the effort of thinking that little speech up and gathering the courage to say it to her. “I appreciate the apology. And I appreciate that you realize what you did was wrong.” She paused again, recalling a moment from a meeting she’d attended in her fathers place just a few days ago. “And I appreciate what you’re doing to help the families relocate the bodies of their lost loved ones that were killed by The Winter Soldier and Hydra. I don’t think you understand how much it means to a person to have their loved ones back, even if they’ve already passed.”

“Thank you Dr. Stark. If you ever need anything, you know where to find me.”

“Of course.” She moved to finally walk past him, but stopped once more, turning to look at Sergeant Barnes again. Everything inside her was telling her to hate him. He deserved it after all, he deserved to be hated by her. But he also didn’t in a way. Her and her father both knew that Sergeant Barnes didn’t have the ability to stop what was happening to him and stop what he was doing. Sighing softly, she looked up at him again, her dark brown eyes meeting his steely grey. “You can call me Maria. If you’d like.”

“Thank you. You can call me James.” He paused and scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck. “If you want.”

With a nod, Maria finally walked past him, glancing back one last time to see him nod in her direction as well, before turning and walking away. 

“What held you up?” Rhodey asked the second she walked into the conference room. 

“Uh- just someone who needed to talk to me.”

“Huh, weird. Alright.” The man shrugged before clicking on the TV. “Alright, let’s get to work.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm thinking of creating a second series of different fics that i would like to write of maria with different characters in relationships. there are a few characters i've been bouncing around my head as i consider who i think she'd match well with, and bucky happened to be one of them.  
> have any ideas on who you think maria would be cute with? please let me know! i'm dying to get back into the groove of writing before i have to head off to college this fall, so any and all comments are appreciated and adored.  
> thanks!!


End file.
